Egyptians love weddings -- a lot. Indeed, the word farah means both "joy" and "wedding" in the Egyptian dialect. Given my age, I am constantly overhearing engagement plans, engagement aspirations, wedding arrangements, and wedding gossip. During one recent metro trip, I was packed in next to four girls a little younger than myself poring over a lingerie catalog. This one... no this one! They pointed and giggled to almost every single negligee. (None of which, I will point out, were modeled by live humans -- don't be imagining Victoria's Secret here.) So, one of the girls leaned in when there was a pause, when's the wedding?
Not long ago, I passed through the lobby of my apartment building and offered some cookies from the box I was carrying to the guards. Are you going to a wedding?! They asked eagerly. No, I said apologetically, Just celebrating a friend's new job. I received what would have been an improbable response back home: Well, I hope to God you are able to get married soon. I smiled and told them I was really in no rush. How old are you? one of the guards asked, scrutinizing me for hints of wrinkles. 23. Hmm, you really should hurry! You look much nicer now than you will when you get older. He said it with a wink and a smile, but it's true that 23 is considered primetime: it's all downhill from here. This brings me to the title of this post: It literally means - May the wedding be soon. You say this to congratulate someone on his or her engagement. (What are those numbers, you ask? That's Arabic chat alphabet, in which numbers are used to represent sounds the Latin alphabet doesn't accommodate.)
But the guards aren't the only ones who are praying for my speedy marriage. Facebook has also taken up the cause. I have been receiving a constant stream of Egyptian wedding advertisements, which concerns me primarily because those ads are supposed to be tailored to your interests and search history. A delicious sampling:
While Facebook was busy trying to help me plan my own future, I was busy getting ready for my friends Kareem and Rama's actual wedding. I've been excited about this for a while -- or at least since January, when they decided to hold the wedding in March. (I've observed that while engagements might last a couple years, as in their case, Egyptian weddings can be planned in record-breaking time.) The week before the wedding, Sarah and I went shoe shopping downtown. At one shop, I took my dress out from its plastic bag to match with the hot pink velvet shoes I was considering (and later bought). The salesman, a smiley guy about our age, looked on with astonishment. So where's the rest? he asked, pointing to the dress. Keda bas, I told him -- That's it. But that doesn't fly here, he told me, never losing his grin. Is this a foreign wedding or something? Nope, I told him, it was most definitely an Egyptian wedding and many girls would be wearing similarly scandalous dresses. He threw up his hands. El balad bazet!! he said (still grinning) -- which I liberally translate as: We're going to hell in a handbasket. Outside I had an altercation with a street vendor who told me he wanted to touch my ass. All in a day's work.
Downtown had returned to normal by March 12, just three days after the Day of Retribution that many had feared would go terribly awry. I had spent that Saturday morning not attending my Zamalek Zumba class after a friend on an early morning run reported that thousands of Ultras Ahlawy had gathered outside their club on the southern half of the island. Instead, a fellow CASAwy hosted a pancake breakfast at his Dokki apartment and we followed the Port Saeed verdicts on Twitter. In the end, there were no surprises. This very fact, however, seems to have surprised the Ultras and they waited around for a while, not sure what to do. The verdict, which confirmed death sentences for a number of Port Saeedis, was what they had wanted. However, they ultimately decided it wasn't satisfactory. Sometime late morning, we started to see police helicopters circling around the Zamalek area. And then we saw large clouds of gray smoke billow up from the island. What was burning? We checked Twitter. It was the Police Club, a fancy private club for officers and their families. Miraculously, this seemed to be the most dramatic casualty of the day. I read that afternoon that two fast-food restaurants downtown had also been set afire by masked vandals claiming to be punishing Ikhwanis -- but one of them was the restaurant owned by Ali, the friend of my Princeton professor who served me a whole sheep at his house last summer. (Definitely not Ikhwani.) Fortunately, almost no damage was done and he quickly reopened. And so for now things are calm: I can sit on the AUC terrace off Mohamed Mahmoud St., a stone's throw from Tahrir, and listen to the peaceful sounds of garden shears and bird chirps rather than the explosions of Molotov cocktails or tear gas canisters.
It was in this happily peaceful context that Kareem and Rama's wedding took place last Friday. The day of the wedding, Sarah, Robin, and I went to Versailles Salon for some new 'dos. My hairdresser, Yassine, greeted me with an unexpected: Parlo italiano? I learned that he used to work in Italy, and so despite apologizing for not speaking Italian, I was treated to grazies and signioras that added greatly to the overall experience. A few hours later, we were in the car with the groom's father and his driver. (Only in Egypt would it seem perfectly natural for the father of the groom to agree to take a couple of his son's random foreign friends along!) It's common knowledge that 7pm means 9pm, so no one, including the wedding party, arrived in the hall before then. As we stood in the empty hall, the groom's father, who works in the oil business, explained to us that lack of precision when it comes to being on time was something that was making Egypt fall behind in the world market. (To be noted: he and his son are both always on time.)
It was an extremely classy wedding - and a fun one. There were no overeager dance troupes in matching sparkly costumes. The groom's two best friends brought him to the crowd waiting on the steps outside the hall, and he waited there for his bride as the zeffa band blasted its horns and friends blew bubbles or tossed flower petals. Rama arrived with her dad, passing through the crowd to meet Kareem. Then we and the band followed them inside together. The tables were decorated with bouquets of beautiful tall, white lilies. But except for the slideshow and delectable buffet dinner (at midnight, like clockwork), we were barely at the table. This wedding was a dance party that lasted from 9pm to 3am: Egyptian sha3by line dances (including my favorite, "Haty Bosa ya Bet" - check it out), party standards like 'Twist and Shout', and the bride's father weaving through the dancers with a fat cigar in his mouth. Sometime around 2:30am I found myself lined up and performing the Macarena with about 12 other hardcore partiers. Soon after, we gathered to symbolically usher the bride and groom off the dance floor and out of the hall. (Until they came back to say goodbye, of course.)
Until the next wedding, I am trying to stay busy by reviving my reputation as CASA cultural attache. Tonight was Opera night, dress code: formal. You may know The Merry Widow as a turn-of-the-century German operetta about the romantic escapades of a bunch of dukes and diplomats in Paris. ("You'll Find Me at Maxim's" is one of the signature songs.) All of these things were true of the Cairo version, except the German. The operetta was performed in colloquial Egyptian Arabic, which was amazingly well suited to it. The light-hearted romantic plot closely resembles that of popular Egyptian movies. Although the audience was disappointingly small, the show was a big success. After it was over, a violinist friend of Sarah's, who had come to watch the opera with us, took us backstage. The prima donna was posing for photos, her face plastered in silver sparkles and mile-long fake eyelashes. We tiptoed past and walked out with the violinist's teacher, a graying Hungarian who was playing in the opera's pit orchestra. He introduced himself to us and immediately invited us to his birthday party this weekend. My wife is away, I can have many parties at my house, he promised. And, I have lots of beers!
Not long ago, I passed through the lobby of my apartment building and offered some cookies from the box I was carrying to the guards. Are you going to a wedding?! They asked eagerly. No, I said apologetically, Just celebrating a friend's new job. I received what would have been an improbable response back home: Well, I hope to God you are able to get married soon. I smiled and told them I was really in no rush. How old are you? one of the guards asked, scrutinizing me for hints of wrinkles. 23. Hmm, you really should hurry! You look much nicer now than you will when you get older. He said it with a wink and a smile, but it's true that 23 is considered primetime: it's all downhill from here. This brings me to the title of this post: It literally means - May the wedding be soon. You say this to congratulate someone on his or her engagement. (What are those numbers, you ask? That's Arabic chat alphabet, in which numbers are used to represent sounds the Latin alphabet doesn't accommodate.)
But the guards aren't the only ones who are praying for my speedy marriage. Facebook has also taken up the cause. I have been receiving a constant stream of Egyptian wedding advertisements, which concerns me primarily because those ads are supposed to be tailored to your interests and search history. A delicious sampling:
Starting off with an easy one. Pretty self-explanatory. Inshallah is the Arabic catch-all word that means "God willing." In addition to cases when one might reasonably say this in any language, it is used, for example, when someone asks you if you are getting off at the next metro stop. Proper response: "Inshallah." (Long did I wonder what could possibly come between me and my getting off the metro 30 seconds later. Until January 25, when, thanks to Ultras wreaking underground havoc, I was trapped in metro tunnel hell.)
"The way to marriage." This is great because it offers me free registration. Once I've registered, I am well on my way to finding my life partner.
Now here's a winner. This is specifically advertising temporary marriages. Those are for couples that can't afford or don't want a real, long-term marriage, but don't want to do anything haram. You don't get the big party, but you do get some paperwork saying its okay for you to rent an apartment together.
Downtown had returned to normal by March 12, just three days after the Day of Retribution that many had feared would go terribly awry. I had spent that Saturday morning not attending my Zamalek Zumba class after a friend on an early morning run reported that thousands of Ultras Ahlawy had gathered outside their club on the southern half of the island. Instead, a fellow CASAwy hosted a pancake breakfast at his Dokki apartment and we followed the Port Saeed verdicts on Twitter. In the end, there were no surprises. This very fact, however, seems to have surprised the Ultras and they waited around for a while, not sure what to do. The verdict, which confirmed death sentences for a number of Port Saeedis, was what they had wanted. However, they ultimately decided it wasn't satisfactory. Sometime late morning, we started to see police helicopters circling around the Zamalek area. And then we saw large clouds of gray smoke billow up from the island. What was burning? We checked Twitter. It was the Police Club, a fancy private club for officers and their families. Miraculously, this seemed to be the most dramatic casualty of the day. I read that afternoon that two fast-food restaurants downtown had also been set afire by masked vandals claiming to be punishing Ikhwanis -- but one of them was the restaurant owned by Ali, the friend of my Princeton professor who served me a whole sheep at his house last summer. (Definitely not Ikhwani.) Fortunately, almost no damage was done and he quickly reopened. And so for now things are calm: I can sit on the AUC terrace off Mohamed Mahmoud St., a stone's throw from Tahrir, and listen to the peaceful sounds of garden shears and bird chirps rather than the explosions of Molotov cocktails or tear gas canisters.
It was in this happily peaceful context that Kareem and Rama's wedding took place last Friday. The day of the wedding, Sarah, Robin, and I went to Versailles Salon for some new 'dos. My hairdresser, Yassine, greeted me with an unexpected: Parlo italiano? I learned that he used to work in Italy, and so despite apologizing for not speaking Italian, I was treated to grazies and signioras that added greatly to the overall experience. A few hours later, we were in the car with the groom's father and his driver. (Only in Egypt would it seem perfectly natural for the father of the groom to agree to take a couple of his son's random foreign friends along!) It's common knowledge that 7pm means 9pm, so no one, including the wedding party, arrived in the hall before then. As we stood in the empty hall, the groom's father, who works in the oil business, explained to us that lack of precision when it comes to being on time was something that was making Egypt fall behind in the world market. (To be noted: he and his son are both always on time.)
It was an extremely classy wedding - and a fun one. There were no overeager dance troupes in matching sparkly costumes. The groom's two best friends brought him to the crowd waiting on the steps outside the hall, and he waited there for his bride as the zeffa band blasted its horns and friends blew bubbles or tossed flower petals. Rama arrived with her dad, passing through the crowd to meet Kareem. Then we and the band followed them inside together. The tables were decorated with bouquets of beautiful tall, white lilies. But except for the slideshow and delectable buffet dinner (at midnight, like clockwork), we were barely at the table. This wedding was a dance party that lasted from 9pm to 3am: Egyptian sha3by line dances (including my favorite, "Haty Bosa ya Bet" - check it out), party standards like 'Twist and Shout', and the bride's father weaving through the dancers with a fat cigar in his mouth. Sometime around 2:30am I found myself lined up and performing the Macarena with about 12 other hardcore partiers. Soon after, we gathered to symbolically usher the bride and groom off the dance floor and out of the hall. (Until they came back to say goodbye, of course.)
Walking the bride and groom into the hall - the Zeffa.
Cutting the cake (Shh, it's never real... That waiter is serving the bites of real food.)
Awaiting the midnight buffet with friends
2am, when I'm told that Haty Bosy ya Bet is on next
Until the next wedding, I am trying to stay busy by reviving my reputation as CASA cultural attache. Tonight was Opera night, dress code: formal. You may know The Merry Widow as a turn-of-the-century German operetta about the romantic escapades of a bunch of dukes and diplomats in Paris. ("You'll Find Me at Maxim's" is one of the signature songs.) All of these things were true of the Cairo version, except the German. The operetta was performed in colloquial Egyptian Arabic, which was amazingly well suited to it. The light-hearted romantic plot closely resembles that of popular Egyptian movies. Although the audience was disappointingly small, the show was a big success. After it was over, a violinist friend of Sarah's, who had come to watch the opera with us, took us backstage. The prima donna was posing for photos, her face plastered in silver sparkles and mile-long fake eyelashes. We tiptoed past and walked out with the violinist's teacher, a graying Hungarian who was playing in the opera's pit orchestra. He introduced himself to us and immediately invited us to his birthday party this weekend. My wife is away, I can have many parties at my house, he promised. And, I have lots of beers!
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